Comfortably Numb

“He told me he loved me last night”, my sister exclaimed upon coming home from the evening it was roughly around 10pm. As I heard these words I was comfortably secluded by the warmth of my blankets and by all of my layers of clothing and in my head all of this chitter chatter about her boyfriend almost made me want to explode so I blurted out, “College is soon and there is such a big world out there.” After my Sister Abby folded her clothes, made her bed and settled into her nest she muffled out, “You wouldn’t understand.” As I turned my head over to the left side of my pillow to enter my dreams I realized that I wanted her boyfriend to say those three little words to me.

That evening I tossed and turned in my bed there was no possible way I could sleep after hearing what I just heard. My whole body was aching. The thoughts that were ranging in my head went from what did I have for dinner? To do i love him. My sister was falling in love and she was falling hard. Abby Carlton is my twin sister. She is about five foot seven is captain of the basketball and volleyball team. She comes to school dressed in whatever she feels like and more often times than not you see her wearing my black jeans paired with black converse. I kid you not she is about ten inches taller than I am. But somehow still manages to squeeze into my clothing. Her boyfriend, Davis is one of the most admired people at school. He won the Superintendents Award and was voted best to bring home to mom and dad figures. The guy is a total sweetheart and not to mention is an incredibly talented musician. Whenever I walked toward Davis my stomach twisted and turned just looking at him caused butterflies. Before I actually got to open my locker, Davis tried to block me I laughed and said,

“I’m not strong enough to push you away.” I then touched his grey sweater purchased from Old Navy just enough to feel his six pack peeking through and as hard as I could I dug my fingernails into him and said, “Try me.” He then scattered away towards the mass of boys at the left. After I dialed the digits 5-35-39 into my locker it opened. Davis appeared again, instead of talking he snatched the blue Gatorade bottle seated at the highest point of my miniscule locker. Before he could get any satisfaction I reached down into my black and blue striped Jansport backpack and pulled out an orange Gatorade surprisingly completely full. I looked up at Davis blew him some kisses and walked off with pride and a hop in my step. I really didn’t like to see couples in the hallway. Something about it always tended to make me extremely uneasy. But I especially didn’t like to see Abby and Davis they always engaged in the longest hugs and always looked like they were in some really in depth conversation that I wouldn’t understand. I can recall this one time when I was walking by them holding hands they were waffling of course and Davis looked over at me and winked I swear I saw him. I always acted like Abby was the biggest walking cliché for being so in love at such a young age, But silently I was extremely jealous of the both of them. To some people senior year is about having fun and making the most of it, but to me it’s about getting good grades and getting the hell out of here. You see I’m not what you would call popular I don’t go out much and I never party or get into any trouble. I’m a good kid and I have a couple of good friends and when I work extremely hard at something I tend to succeed. But l never seemed to measure up to Abby’s standards. I’m told that Abby is like a better version of myself and once you start to hear something so damn often you start to believe it. Next to my name in the yearbook there will be no special achievements.

*** The infatuation between Abby and Davis began on New Year’s Eve Abby was just going to a casual party with some of her closest friends but to her surprise the party was being held in Davis’s basement. The party was just like any other party that a normal teenager would be seen engaging in there were drinks, food, beer pong and whatever else teenagers from the twenty first century do at parties, clearly I am not one to ask about these types of things. Anyways, Abby came home the next day and was telling me how much of a blast it was and I recalled seeing a photo of her and Davis on Instagram so I said, “It was at Davises house.”

“Ya he’s kind of cute” So Abby went on for weeks and weeks about Davis and how they began texting because Davis asked for her number over twitter. I remembered when Davis liked a selfie I posted on Instagram it made me blush for weeks. Then they went on their first date while I was watching the TV show Awkward all alone sitting in my living room with my English mastiff by my side barking every so often. When Abby came home I remembered asking “did you kiss him?” “nobody,she said, kisses on the first date.” If I went on a date with Davis I would do more than just kiss him I missed the memo on that one. Weeks and weeks went on and there casual dating game became something much more I remembered her coming home with sweat trickling down her forhead and her body odor radiating throughout the house she just came from her basketball game with a dozen of red roses and a box of chocolates in her hand. I said, “He couldn’t of waited until Valentine’s Day.”

“No Paige that’s too corny,” So on February seventh my sister Abby changed her relationship status to In a Relationship with Davis Patterson. I remembered liking this post but what I didn’t notice was the tear coming from my left eye.

One night it was about how good he played the drums at The Space in Hamden CT. The next night it was about how Davis took her to the top of the Rockville tower at the crack of dawn with all of Vernon’s beauty basking in the buildings down below while the song Demons by Imagine Dragons blasted from his stereo. My heart seemed to get smaller and smaller with each passing day. I finally cracked and said, “Abby he’s not that great.” Ever since that night Abby came home either crying or extremely intense in thought. I always knew the reason why it was because her perfect boyfriend Davis wasn’t so perfect after all or it was because Davis was realizing he needed to be with someone made for him, someone more like me.

One night I remembered peering at the two from outside my four by six white washed window I saw Davies’s black Ultima parked alongside the curb both head lights blinding the rest of Tracy Drive this could only mean one thing. They were fighting and they were fighting harshly I saw hands being thrown up in the air I saw two angry faces I saw Abby’s tears I saw Abby violently slam the door shut and Davis eagerly driving off leaving her in the dust to rot. Abby stayed seated on the damp and overly grown out grass for roughly two hours. I wondered if I should go out and see what kind of damage the boy caused, but other times I felt that it would be best for me to let her figure it out on her own I mean how bad could it really be? In my head I hoped and prayed that it would be something really brutal.

Abby returned inside the house at the unholy hour of 3am and I was still wide awake. I recalled the time Davis and I went on a date two years ago, before he even knew my shining sister Abby existed. We were only fifteen years old so neither of us could drive. Instead his gracious and wonderful mother picked me up and I slid into the backseat of her purple minivan. I inched myself into the leather seat my feet were barely touching the ground. Davises hand suddenly reached mine and every so often he would rub his thumb against my tiny and fragile fingers sending shivers through my entire body. While we sat in silence I remembered looking up at him and he smiled because he knew.

In an instant Abby shot up and jumped up onto my bed which was covered in blankets that had pink and green flamingos on them. Here I was a seventeen year old girl stuck inside a twelve year olds room. Abby was crying, her long heaping sobs made me feel a deep empathy for her. Davis dumped me, and he told me “Your sister is a lot prettier then you” after that humiliating experience I crawled into my sister’s bed crying she didn’t ask me questions she just let me be. She knew me better than anyone else in the whole entire world. Tonight I didn’t ask her questions I just let her sleep in perfect peace. I should of warned her about Davis how could I of been such an awful sister? ***

Both of us woke up at the crack of dawn the exact time that the sun was proposed to set. I grabbed her hand and led her outside with nothing but a blanket and a cup of coffee for her and a hot chocolate for me. Upon setting the blanket down amongst the morning dew I saw a smile appear on the crevices of my sisters cheeks. She laid down body outstretched towards the sky. While I sat cross-legged. We drank our warm beverages in unison and took pictures of the rising pink and organge sun with our white IPhone 5s. Instead of preaching to her about how evil boys can be I turned and said “Remember that you have to move on, somehow. You just pick your head up and stare at the sky, or the ocean, and you move the hell on.”

Abby didn’t say a word instead she lifted the quilted blanket off the ground and stared at the tiny imprints of hands we made when we were roughly around eight one blue one bright orange and slightly messier then the other. She then folded up the blanket corner to corner knocking her hazelnut coffee over to soil the earth it was to be a reminder of this moment forever. She took one last long look at me and walked inside the house while she does this I swear I could hear her say, “If you aren’t good enough for someone they aren’t good enough for you”.

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